"The Gardener" is split between two predominant spatial settings: a village in England and a cemetery in Belgium. In the second half of the story, the narrator shares Helen's flashback to a visit she paid to a munition factory with Michael. For the most part, however, the narrator does not dwell on the setting very much. It is only at the end, when Helen makes it to Flanders and the fictional Hagenzeele Third Cemetery, that the story features any significant drawn-out imagery. Before this, the narrator devotes much more space to events, conversations, and character emotions than to the setting.
Even if the spatial setting mostly figures as a backdrop that the narrator often neglects to elaborate on, the temporal setting is defining for the story's course of events. "The Gardener" begins right before the turn of the century, then speeds through Michael's childhood and teenage years, until it slows down when he joins—and eventually goes missing in—the war. The story completely hinges on being set in the years before, during, and after World War I. Moreover, the spatial setting is driven forward by this temporal setting, as it is the war that takes Helen (and the narrator with her) to Belgium in the second half of the story.
Another aspect of the setting that is worth noting is Helen's alibi for Michael's birth. Michael is supposedly the son of Helen's brother George, who works until his death as an Inspector of Indian Police. The boy's supposed mother is the daughter of a retired non-commissioned officer. This detail highlights another world circumstance occurring in the background of the story: British imperialism in South Asia. Although it is not a major aspect of the story itself, George's profession and place of residence remind the reader that many of the soldiers fighting in the British Army during World War I came from Britain's overseas colonies. Troops from India (which at the time included Pakistan and Bangladesh) fought on fronts from the Middle East to East Africa and the Balkans, and over a million Indians served as combatants and laborers in the war.
